LOWELL -- The blizzard that brought almost 2 feet of snow to the region also brought frustration to workers and residents who spent Saturday trying to shovel out.

"All my guys that have been doing this for years said last night was not their typical experience," said Lowell Department of Public Works Commissioner Ralph Snow said Saturday evening. "It was a lot of snow in a very short time. We've got a lot of tired guys who are probably in bed right now."

National Weather Service spotters reported 20 inches of snow in Lowell, but strong winds made snowdrifts higher in some areas.

Wilmington and Acton saw the most snowfall locally, with 29 inches and 27 inches reported. Tyngsboro received 26 inches, and Dracut got 24.

Timothy Carignan, 11, helps shovel the sidewalk in front of his house on Riverside Street in the city's Pawtucketville section. SUN / JULIA MALAKIE

In Lowell, crews were out with the first flakes Friday morning until 5 p.m. Saturday, and planned to hit city streets again by 5 a.m. Sunday, Snow said. The city augmented its fleet of plows with contractors, for a total of around 220 pieces of equipment.

Snowdrifts piled so high that city emergency crews responded to several calls Saturday morning from people who were trapped in their homes by snow that piled up against their doors.

Police Capt. William Taylor, on duty in the city's Emergency Operations Center, said there were at least a half-dozen such calls by Saturday morning.

"People are literally having a hard time opening their front doors due to snowdrifts," Taylor said.

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Taylor said most major thoroughfares in the city were plowed by 11 a.m., with crews continuing to tackle smaller streets throughout the afternoon.

Some side streets in neighborhoods like Back Central could not be plowed because cars parked along them left too little space for a city plow to get through.

Centre Street and Cady Street in Back Central were among those streets. Officials in Lowell's Emergency Operations Center said crews were using Bobcats and smaller equipment to clear those streets, but that residents were also being encouraged to move their cars.

Jose Jeraldo, rear, and Beth Soparkar, right, shovel their sidewalk on Coburn Street in Lowell's Centralville section. Soparkar said the plows did the other side of the street, but left big piles on their side.
SUN / JULIA MALAKIE

Stephanie Silva lives on Centre Street, and at 3 p.m., said she had been shoveling since 9:30 a.m. with her family and two other families that live in her building. They took 10- and 30-minute breaks for hot coffee.

They had cleared space around their cars, which were parked in a driveway, but since a plow could not make it down Centre Street, the street remained covered in snow.

"We're freezing," Silva said. "I have to work at 4 o'clock, but I can't."

Just across the street from Silva, Linton Scarlett said he had been shoveling all night, with little progress.

"With a couple inches every hour, the guys would do their routes, and a little while later it would look like they hadn't been there yet," he said.

The roads were difficult to clear in near white-out conditions, said Snow. Plows did not make it to the city's schools and cemeteries, and some roadways needed to be revisited, blocked up again after more snow made it back into the streets when drivers cleaned off their cars.

"A lot of people think the snow stopped in the sun came out, so everything can be perfect," Snow said. "This is going to take us days, really, days, to get everything back to where it's safe and normal again."

One of the biggest challenges for emergency crews Friday into Saturday was making sure people still had access to medical care, said Taylor, of the Lowell Police Department.

Cookie, left, and Mindy, both Maltese dogs, peek out a second-floor window with their owner, Maria Ponce, as she watches her son, Gabriel Soliz, shovel on University Avenue in Lowell.
SUN / JULIA MALAKIE

"Overnight there were several times where, in addition to police and fire, we had to have the DPW send front-end loaders to try to open up a path for an ambulance," he said.

A pedestrian was struck by a vehicle near 1201 Bridge St. about 11 a.m., but there were no serious injuries reported in that crash.

In Billerica, two people were injured in a snowmobile accident near 365 Boston Road around 1 a.m. Saturday, according to police. More information was not immediately available Saturday night, but police said there were no other storm-related incidents there.

While Massachusetts officials report that no one was ticketed for driving during the travel ban, an arrest was made in New Hampshire when Pelham police found a man trying to hide the off-road vehicle they say he drove into a snow plow on Bush Hill Road.

Peter Hahn, 38, of Nashua, was charged with reckless operation and operating an off-highway recreational vehicle on a roadway, after he allegedly turned a corner at high speed and struck a pickup truck with a plow attached shortly before noon on Saturday.

Police in other area towns reported no major issues during the storm.

As of 6 p.m. Saturday, a total of 354,000 National Grid and NSTAR customers statewide remained without power, according to the Massachusetts Emergency Management Authority.

Power stayed on in most of Greater Lowell through the duration of the storm, with around 100 outages reported at one point.

Of the 17 Middlesex County outages National Grid reported Saturday, only one was in Lowell, with the rest in Medford. Power was fully restored by 7:30 p.m.

Follow Robert Mills on Twitter @Robert_Mills and Katie Lannan @katielannan.

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